Archive for 2013

AT&T announced on Tuesday the release of the Unite Pro LTE hotspot from Netgear. This mobile WiFi device, scheduled to be released on November 22nd, features a 2.4 inch touchscreen display and has some upgrades from its Unite predecessor. The Pro will manage up to 15 simultaneous wireless connections with a 16 hour batter life, upping it from 10 devices and 10 hours in the previous model.

The price is increasing a little as well, however. While the Unite when for 99 cents with a 2-year contract, the Unite Pro is $49.99 with a 2-year contract. More details are available in this video below from AT&T.

Google rolled out its Chromecast media device earlier this past summer and after using it this fall I’m sorry I didn’t get to it sooner. This small device was easy to setup and provided a great solution for viewing my Google Play purchased media on my TV.

The device was very easy to install, simply by installing Chromecast on my Android device and then plugging it into an HDMI port on the TV. the device does need some external power however and comes with a USB cord that can be run from a power outlet or a USB port on the TV (if there is one available). From there the Chromecast software found the device and walked me through a few simple steps to connect it to the internet and get going.

HGST, a subsidiary of Western Digital, announced on Monday the launch of its first helium-filled hard drive. The new Ultrastar He6 drive comes with a 6TB capacity in a 3.5-inch drive enclosure.

According to HGST, having helium in the enclosure has significantly less friction than air, allowing for less energy needed to physically move platters around inside the drive resulting in more platters with an acceptable performance. More platters mean more drive space with a general increase by three quarters over a standard air-filled hard drive.

The challenge has been to create a chamber in the drive that was tight enough to avoid leaking the helium, and HGST assures us that it is a safe volume with “less helium than a balloon”. Pricing was not initially available, however the company stated that it will “…cost-effectively extend the capacity and …

On Tuesday Apple announced the release of its fifth generation iPad mini, named the iPad Air as an offshoot naming of the Macboook line of products, confirming rumors of the anticipated release earlier in the month. The new iPad Air primarily features a new lighter, thinner design weighing in at just one pound and 7.5 mm thick (that’s less than a third of an inch to you metrically challenged folks).

Apple has also added in a faster A7, 64-bit chipset, where Apple states it doubles the processor speed with the same battery drain as its predecessor. They’ve also added dual WiFi antenna’s with MIMO, the high resolution (2048×1536) Retina display on a 9.7-inch screen and kept up to 10 hours of battery life.

Apple is releasing the iPad Air November 1st with prices starting at $499 for a 16GB …

Monday morning it appears Facebook is having a relatively widespread issue with status updates. If you ran into it this morning, apparently you are not the only one. Reports across the country have been posted online stating the issue. We encountered a message this morning when trying to update a status and received the message: “There was a problem updating your status. Please try again in a few minutes.” Others have reported the updates with no error message, but the updates ultimately do not happen.

No message from Facebook officials as of yet as to when it will be resolved or how widespread the problem is.

On Thursday Engadget has reported seeing the anticipated Nexus 5 appearing on the Google Play Store website, if only briefly. For a time the advertisement for the existing Nexus 4 was gone and replaced with one for the Nexus 5, listing at $349 for a 16GB model.

The display was short-lived and not appearing any longer today, but enough information has been leaked this month to give a good overview of what is expected to come. The Nexus 5 is anticipated to sport a 1080p, 4.95 inch display, storage up to 32GB and the 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 CPU.

We had been anticipating the release of the Nexus 5 by now, but there is no official word of the release date. Engadget is speculating the release to coincide with a the possible release of the Android 4.4 KitKat OS later in …

Adidas announced on Wednesday the release of a new smartwatch targeting runners, putting some additional competition in the wearable exercise devices with Nike’s Fuelband and the Fitbit Force.

According to Paul Gaudio, the vice president in charge of Adidas’ interactive division, the Adidas smartwatch is focusing on making the best running watch as apposed to competing in the smartwatch space with Google and Apple. The Adidas smartwatch includes the ability to connect through Bluetooth with a smartphone but will require less dependency by incorporating flash storage for music right on the wrist-worn device. It also has features to give real-time feedback to the user while exercising by tracking heart rate and motion, and then producing vibrations or audible feedback through headphones.

The watch isn’t coming cheap however with an expected price tag of $399. Compared to the Nike Fuelband it comes …

Garmin has a slick device that pairs with your smartphone via Bluetooth and will project a heads-up display of driving directions on your windshield. Along with standard directions it can also show speed, traffic info, speed camera alerts and suggest lanes.

The dasbhoard mountable HUD from Garmin is wireless and will project the display onto a transparent film that sticks to your windshield or onto a reflector lens attached to the device. It works with iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 8 and will require Garmin’s StreetPilot or NAVIGON software.

[caption id="attachment_72037" align="alignnone" width="500"] Samsung Galaxy Gear launched the smartwatch revolution[/caption]Google could have a smartwatch just around the corner according to reports from 9to5Google, with an official announcement as soon as the end of October. The device is codenamed Gem and would be announced as a Nexus watch from Google.

The watch would benefit from the features of Google Now, could integrate nicely with Google Glasses and show information such as emails, texts and calendar alerts on the display. This news comes hot on the heals of the announcement of Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smartwatch utilizing the Android OS, along with talk of Apple releasing their own smartwatch sometime in 2014.

Google’s recent purchase of smartwatch maker WIMM Labs also adds some validity to this talk. According to the rumor Google is just finishing up on final touches with improving the battery …

Microsoft announced on Monday the third update to its Windows Phone 8 mobile platform featuring updates including support for a larger Start screen at a higher resolution. Microsoft also included support for a faster processor, a driving mode, accessibility features and a few more.

The update creates the ability for Windows Phone 8 to support larger 5 and 6 inch mobile devices which some are calling “phablets”. Microsoft did not use the word phablet or refer to any larger devices being released however the main image on the release post from Microsoft had “phablet” in the file name. This would handle 1080p HD resolution and allows for as many as six Live Tiles across the screen. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Nokia come out with a larger device with the updated OS from Microsoft after Microsoft’s recent purchase …

Fitbit, makers of the fitness tracking Flex wristband, announced Thursday that it will be releasing the Fitbit Force this fall. The Force is an updated version of the Flex with some additional features, most notably an OLED display right on the device.

The added display is a big advancement in the device. Not only will this allow the user to see their distance progress and calories burned as you might expect, but it can also see the names of incoming callers. The Fitbit Force will pair with your iPhone via Bluetooth and is the first of the wrist-worn devices to take advantage of the new Apple iOS 7 notification center. This way users on a run can track the calls that come in without having to pull out their phone and gives Fitbit a jump on the competition from Nike’s Fuelband and …

According to unnamed sources, rumors are that Apple is not done with new product releases for the year. According to AllThngsD Apple is planning an invitation-only event, location still undisclosed, to unveil an 5th generation iPad on October 22nd.

Allegedly the new release will be an updated iPad mini with a slimmer design, improved camera and a faster chip with the 64-bit A7. It also would have retina display like its bigger sibling and rumors of the Touch ID fingerprint sensor which is not on any iPad but was introduced recently on the iPhone 5s.

Coinciding with this news Apple shares are up by 1%, or over $4 a share. Even though the iPad remains the top competitor in tablet market Apple has seen some hefty competition from Google and more recently Amazon with the Kindle Fire. The Apple …

According to Take Two Interactive, Grand Theft Auto V was a huge success bringing in $1 billion in its first three days after launching, however some performance issues have hindered the recent launch of Grand Theft Auto Online, tied to this release. Grand Theft Auto Online is something new for Rockstar Games and will allow players to participate in many of the same activities that they would with the distributed game, but online in a “living world” with multiple players.

Reviewing Rockstar’s Twitter account, it appears there are multiple people reporting issues with access and performance to the online version of the game and Rockstar is getting back to them individually with a summary of what the problems are and what is being addressed. They are even offering an automated email to alert users when the identified items …

On Wednesday the social media giant Twitter, launched “Twitter Alerts”. When news breaks about a safety concern or a weather related emergency, a Twitter Alert will pop up in your feed from the appropriate organization handling the information during the emergency.

The Twitter Alerts program is available to any organization that will be providing the critical information to the public; these organizations can be local, national or international. Currently, Twitter has more than 100 government agencies that are enrolled in this program. If you believe your agency should be enrolled in the program, fill out their enrollment form.

Believe it or not, Twitter has already proven to come in handy during times of disaster. FEMA used Twitter as a way to communicate critical information for those in the path of Hurricane Sandy. And the Boston Police Department used Twitter to …

When hashtags are used the right way, they are a great tool for quickly finding information on Twitter and Facebook. Jimmy and Justin show you exactly how stupid people look when they use hashtags other than a means to get information out to your followers. Even though it is a personal favorite in this video, I would never look up “#thatshowwedo”.